Baking season isn’t just for cookies, pies

It’s easy to get lost in the sugar of the season.

But giving in to the baking bug doesn’t have to mean an endless parade of cookies, cakes and pies. There are plenty of savory options for getting your hands into some dough.

For that, I turn most often to bread. Some people find the prospect of baking bread intimidating; I find it therapeutic. Which is not to say I’m good at it. I almost invariably get distracted, resulting in overrisen dough that sags into a strange, stiff puddle in my oven.

The trick is to find the right recipe, one that produces the sort of bread you love, but also is forgiving. Earlier this year I found my perfect bread, a Cook’s Illustrated magazine recipe for multigrain sandwich loaf.

The Cook’s version of the recipe blends two parts all-purpose flour and one part whole wheat flour with a multigrain hot breakfast cereal. Frankly, that’s simply brilliant. My previous multigrain attempts involved buying minute amounts of a dozen grains.

And as I discovered one hot day this past summer when I forgot about my dough and let it rise hours longer than it should have, this recipe also is extraordinarily forgiving. In fact, I thought that loaf was among the best I’d ever baked.

Multigrain Bread

Recipe adapted from the March/April 2006 issue of Cook’s Illustrated magazine

1 1/4 cups (6 1/4 ounces) multigrain (such as 7- or 10-grain) hot cereal

2 1/2 cups (20 ounces) boiling water

1 1/2 cups (7 1/2 ounces) all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups (7 1/2 ounces) white whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups (7 1/2 ounces) whole wheat flour

4 tablespoons honey

1/4 cup olive oil

2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

1 tablespoon table salt

1/2 cup rolled or quick oats

Cooking oil spray

Place the cereal in the bowl of a standing mixer. Add boiling water, stir and let stand until the mixture cools to about 100 degrees and resembled a thick porridge, about 1 hour. Whisk together the flours in a medium bowl and set aside.

Once the grain mixture has cooled, add the honey, olive oil and yeast and stir to combine. Attach the bowl to the standing mixture fitted with the dough hook. With the mixer on low speed, add the flours, 1/2 cup at a time, and knead until the dough forms a ball, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough stand 20 minutes. Add the salt and knead on medium-low speed until the dough clears the sides of the bowl, about 3 to 4 minutes. Continue to knead another 5 minutes.

Add the oats and knead another 1 to 2 minutes, or until well incorporated.

Lightly spray a large bowl with cooking spray. Remove the dough from the mixer and form into a ball. Place the ball in the oiled bowl, then cover tightly with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise until doubled, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Adjust an oven rack to the center position. Preheat oven to 375 F. Spray two 9-by-5-inch loaf pans with cooking spray.

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and pat into a 12-by-9-inch rectangle. Cut the dough in half crosswise. Roll each piece into a tight log. Transfer each to a loaf pan, cover lightly with plastic wrap and let rise until almost doubled in size, 30 to 40 minutes.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove the loaves from the pan and cool on a wire rack before slicing.

Yield: Two 9-by-5-inch loaves

Nutrition per serving: Unable to calculate.